Review: Fresh, expressive opener for Midsummer Mozart

By Georgia Rowe

Correspondent

Posted:
07/19/2013 10:15:17 AM PDT

Updated:
07/19/2013 10:15:17 AM PDT

More than two centuries after it was written, Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" (also known as the composer's Serenade in G for strings) remains one of the world's best-known pieces. It pops up in films and commercials; it's become part of the soundtrack of our lives.

Yet Thursday night at the Midsummer Mozart Festival, conductor George Cleve made it sound fresh -- in an irresistibly expressive, rhythmically vivacious performance.

That's the magic that Cleve, Midsummer Mozart's founder and music director, creates with the music of the festival's namesake. Each year -- 2013 marks the festival's 39th season -- Cleve and his orchestra exalt the popular, revere the beloved and revive the obscure, exploring every corner of Mozart's repertoire and delivering programs designed to make audiences fall in love with these works all over again.

Thursday's performance at Mission Santa Clara launched the season with two serenades: "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" was paired with the Serenade in C minor; the program's second half featured Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 14 in E-flat major, with Audrey Vardanega as soloist. In between, soprano Rebecca Davis joined the ensemble for two Mozart arias: "Ach ich liebte" from the opera "The Abduction from the Seraglio," and the concert aria "Bella mia fiamma, addio."

Each soloist contributed to the evening's allure. Davis, an Opera San Jose alum whose career is expanding ever outward, deployed her large, lustrous, well-supported soprano to attractive effect in each aria. "Ach ich liebte," sung by the character Konstanze, is an impassioned outpouring from a woman who has been cruelly parted from her lover; if Davis didn't quite touch the core of the character's anguish, her richly colored tone and ardent shaping of the melody offered sufficient rewards.

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Davis sounded more relaxed -- and more affecting -- in "Bella mia fiamma," floating the text of this farewell aria in long, creamy lines. Cleve and the orchestra gave her excellent support, with the woodwinds making poignant contributions.

Vardanega was captivating. The pianist, who made her Midsummer Mozart Festival debut in 2010 at age 14, returned Thursday in a performance of even greater insight and assurance. The Piano Concerto No. 14 is widely considered Mozart's first mature work in the genre, but it retains all the marks of the composer's impetuous youth. Vardanega played it with an ideal blend of charm and headstrong exuberance.

In the opening Allegro vivace, the pianist's deft touch and phrasing were decided assets; the central slow movement, with its dreamy descending figures, was especially lovely. Here, Cleve imbued Mozart's melodies with a smooth blend of lightness and tensile strength, and Vardanega dispatched her part with tender lyricism. The finale was aptly crisp and zesty.

It's always great to hear the music Cleve makes with the orchestra alone, too. Often, it's a symphony, opera overture or divertimento. On this program, it was the two serenades. First came the Serenade in C minor, composed in four movements for octet (two oboes, two clarinets, two horns and two bassoons). Cleve made them sing, with each distinctive voice -- the oboes clear and ringing, the clarinets and bassoons woody and mellow, and horns adding weight and a metallic glint to achieve a silken blend.

That left "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik," and the results were stirring. Amid the eloquence of the violins and the low strings sounding dark-hued and solid as oak, Cleve conducted with clarity and precision. His connection to Mozart deepens with each year, and Thursday's program was just the beginning. It repeats through Sunday at several venues; next week, the festival concludes with performances of Mozart's Symphonies No. 31 and 39, along with the Violin Concerto in A major, with Mayuko Kamio as soloist.